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Sun 5 Aug, 2018 04:03 am
Its still very much a mystery as to why Hitler kept insisting his armies hold onto strong points to the last man. He would have known after Stalingrad that this was strategic stupidity in the extreme, costing him hundreds of thousands of troops for nothing, who could have been preserved for later battles.
Yet he kept insisting on it, time after time, to the very end.
I have an opinion as to his real motivation behind this self defeating mindset.
On December 11, 1941, when Hitler made his catastrophic blunder of declaring war on the U.S., Churchill knew immediately that this move will cost Hitler the war. Hitler, within a week or so, would have also realised this. His long winded attempt to blame Roosevelt (with some justification) for his decision, failed to bring any backlash against Roosevelt, as he no doubt hoped.
So, by Christmas, 1941, Hitler would have realised, for the first time, that his war was lost. By that stage, he knew he had woefully underestimated Russian strength, and that now he was up against 2 industrial superpowers, on top of all his other enemies.
In 1942, his hopes of redressing the huge balance against him were temporarily revived with his big push to capture Russian oil fields.
But the 9th of August 1942 must have been a gloomy day for Hitler. That was the day his armies captured the first of Russian major oilfields, only to find it had been trashed beyond repair. It was said a years work would be required to get it up & running again. Hitler would have known that he would find all the other oil fields in the same state...in other words, his last chance to turn the tide, had failed. He would have known,from this point forward, that his war was utterly lost. Time to turn things round, had run out.
With this in mind, he had another problem. He was desperate to prevent the Germans from realising that the war was lost. He had to keep them fighting. To keep them fighting, he had to keep them believing they had something to fight for. He knew that if at any stage, the Germans stopped fighting, his own fate would be unthinkable. His enemies would all demand that he be handed over to them. This fate would be far worse than death for him.
He also realised he couldnt let the war drag out for too long. Forcing a prolonged stalemate, which was possible at many points, was also a deadly danger to him. In a prolonged stalemate situation, the war weary Germans would soon realise they cant win. They would also realise they could never have peace again with Hitler in charge. The pressure to get rid of him, one way or another, would be overwhelming, from all ranks.
I feel sure that with all these thoughts in mind, Hitler , for the last 2 years of the war, was determined to get to the end game sooner rather than later.
Knowing his enemies would eventually win anyway, he wanted to end it soon, and on his terms (with him in charge), keeping in mind, that for Hitler, this war was all about HIM & what HE wanted. No one else mattered.
He knew it was only a matter of time before the Germans realised all was lost. I believe he feared this more than anything else, apart from being captured alive by the enemy.
This, I believe was the reason he was happy to sacrifice his armies, time after time, in pointless last stands, setting impossible objectives for them to achieve & making suicidal demands, which made it convenient for him to blame the when they failed, and get to the end game where he hoped his lucky star may once again come to save him, or failing that, he would dispatch himself to the next world, like he said he would on the first day of his war in Sept 39.
Its often been said that Hitler was mad, living in a fantasy world, crazy, but I think there was method in his madness. He could not afford to admit, even to his closest henchmen, that the war was lost (at least not till near the end)
He knew that to say this out loud, news of it would spread down the ranks like wildfire. This could only set off a chain of events leading to his removal. He would never allow this to happen. Thus he had to keep up the appearance, even to his henchmen, that he still believed in ultimate victory, even up to the last days. To exit this world on his own terms, he had to keep everyone fighting to the end, but at the same time, he couldnt afford to let that end be too far away, for fear that the Germans might finally realise what he is actually doing.
The only thing that that clown was ever good at was gutter politics. He was no kind of military leader. His idiotic invasion of Russia was based on the idiotic book he had written almost 20 years earlier, and poorly and hastily planned and executed. The OKH made no provision for winter, apparently and incredibly assuming they could take Moscow and force the collapse of the Soviet Union before winter. Their logistical train was an ugly joke that cost at the very least tens of thousands of lives. They relied on horse-drawn transport for Dog's sake. I have read that 2,700,000 horses were killed out right or died in service to the army in that war. The great German war machine is a myth. Hitler made his no surrender demands because he was an idiot whose decisions were based on whim and fantasy. He made von Paulus a field marshal, apparently believing that he would commit suicide rather than surrender the remnants of Sixth army in Stalingrad. Did the jackass think that would serve a military purpose?
All of his military decisions should be seen in the true context. Militarily (and in many other sense), he was a moron.
@Setanta,
I agree.
His occultism made him a 'privy' component to the 'agendarists'.
Puppet salesman, like churchill and stalin.
@Setanta,
Absolutely true. He was the most catastrophic military commander of all time. Even worse than Stalin. At least Stalin had the common sense to learn from his colossal mistakes, eventually. Stalin was at least willing to trust his underlings to make big strategic decisions & plans. Hitler , apart from a couple of rare occasions, would never allow this. He didnt want to delegate too much authority to anyone but himself. He liked to keep all his front commanders in the dark as to what was happening on all the other fronts, the less they knew about how bad the overall situation really is, the better for him. It also gave him the upper hand of being the only one with the full picture.
But I think there was another reason he didnt want anyone else running the show, but himself.... His other secret war being carried out behind the fronts.
When you read about his mass extermination program going on all the time, behind the front lines, it becomes obvious he saw this secret war (genocide) against all undesirables as being more important to him, than even his military war at the front(s),(which he knew was lost anyway). It was said that he happily diverted trains, desperately needed for front supply, to Himmler for transporting jews to death camps instead...a sure sign he knew his military war was lost, and that he saw his genocide war as being more important.
To give someone else too much independent authority, it wouldnt be long before they learned about this other secret war going on behind the fronts.
Hitler knew that this could lead to a dangerous situation for him. He could only trust the knowledge of his genocide war to his handpicked underlings who were willing to carry it out, and to no one else.
Apart from his arrogance & supreme belief in his own "genius", I feel sure this was another reason he refused to let anyone else run his show, even when it was obvious to all, he was not the man for the top job and his every decision was ending in disaster.
@John57,
Do you know what 'NAZI" means, John?
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